Any discussion of the prior art throughout the specification should in no way be considered as an admission that such prior art is widely known or forms part of common general knowledge in the field.
Surveillance systems typically include one or more cameras for capturing live video data. Each camera provides this live video data for allowing the surveillance, in real time, of a surveillance area defined by the view cone of that camera. In this context, the live video data is also commonly referred to as surveillance footage. Typically this surveillance footage is monitored in real-time by a human security officer via a user-interface running on a surveillance terminal. In some cases, it is additionally monitored by way of a software-based analytics program.
From an implementation perspective, it is common to make use of camera servers. A camera server is a component that has assigned to it one or more cameras, and that is configured to make the surveillance footage captured those cameras available for real-time viewing - for example at the surveillance terminal. In some cases the cameras stream the surveillance footage over a TCP/IP network, and the footage is buffered by camera servers connected to the network. The surveillance terminal is also connected to the network, and is able to access footage buffered at the camera servers. This allows the security officer, by way of the user-interface, to view the surveillance footage in real time.
A problem arises when a camera server fails. In particular, surveillance footage captured at cameras assigned to a failed camera server will not be available for monitoring by the security officer. Overcoming this problem typically requires either performing maintenance on the failed camera server to remedy the failure, or manually reassigning the cameras in question to a different camera server—which often requires the installation of a replacement server. The implementation of any of these solutions typically requires a level of technical expertise exceeding the average requirements for a security officer, and as such technical personnel must be engaged. During the time the problem persists, surveillance footage from the affected cameras is not able to be monitored, leading to potentially serious security concerns.
There is a need for improved systems and methods for managing live video data.